The 10 Dumbest -Tober Themed Event Names

"Rocktober" concerts or radio station contests was one thing. Clear. Easy-to-understand. It passes the basic pun test - it rhymes and has at least a somewhat comprehensible meaning. Then "Shocktober" film festivals started happening, and I grew wary... but remained tolerant. Sure, horror movies give you a "shock" and they're fun to watch in October, the month of Halloween. So fair enough... "Shocktober" it is.

But I think we can all agree that the trend of putting -tober at the end of nouns that do not belong there has gone ENTIRELY off the rails at this point. People complain about the leaking of silly Internet slang like LOL into daily life, but you never hear anything about the serious and growing -tober suffix abuse crisis in this country today. That ends NOW.

This list contains all the most egregious mis-uses of the month of October. Remember, dear reader, that you, too, will have to play your part. Before you even consider putting an unconventional noun at the beginning of the name of a month... Is this really necessary? Is there a more hilarious way I could title my event than falling into this lame cliche? Now, because it's List-tober (see how annoying that is?), there are the dumbest event names that play on the tenth month of the year. List Photo: user uploaded image

Walktober

This spine-chilling ad for "Walktober" employee motivational events (also known as "grim death marches") asks: "Is there a time of year better suited to stepping out and going for a walk than fall?"

You mean, aside from spring and summer?

As for the "Walktober' program itself, it basically seems like a piece of software that instructs you to go for a walk, and then tries to not make it seem so arduous by telling you how far you've walked and showing you pictures of dark, autumnal foliage. (Oddly, the "walk tracker" in the ad seems to indicate that the user has walked across much of the Western United States. Surely that seems like a lot of walking to pack into a single month, but then again... it is the best time of the year for taking a walk... October... right?)

2

Sextober

"Hey, we're a progressive university that wants to make sure our student body has access to basic information about their own sexuality, as well as birth control and other essential preventative health measures. What should we name our yearly public health seminar?"

If you guessed Sextober... you're half-right. That's what the student body of Northern Arizona University went with. Kent State, though, took it one step further... Sextoberfest! Woooo! I hope they were careful about where they publicized THAT event, because I'm thinking a lot of people are going to get the wrong idea. ("Sextoberfest has neither beer nor sex at it. Discuss.")

Above, see the video of the Kent State Sextoberfest activities, which for the gents apparently includes having a male peer loudly grill you about female anatomy before instructing you to reach into an oversized simulated vagina to remove condoms that have been stashed inside. Obviously meant to prepare you for the real world, in which women with large papier-mâché genitals will often get naked and yell at you to identify the arrangement of their various sex organs. Usually by the third date.

Below is some footage shot at the NAU "Sextober" event in which traumatized students are encouraged to open up about their childhood experiences with sex ed.

One guy recalls being shown, in the 4th grade, videos in which cartoon characters had sex. I hope someone got that teacher's name from him and alerted the authorities... but hey... anything goes in Sextober.

3

Woktober

Photo: user uploaded image

Do they even have "October" in China, the land of woks? Seems like it'd be some month with a Chinese name. Or like the Month of the Goat or something. (Ha ha! It's fun to have fun with our differences!)

Anyway, various journalism-type publications and blogs have dedicated October to stir-fry cooking, the delicate art of dumping some oil and soy sauce into a heated pan and then throwing whatever you have sitting around in the fridge that's chop-uppable and hoping for the best.

Does heating up food in a conical pan really deserve to have an entire month dedicated to it? Well, only if you think it's important for people to be more educated about stir fry cooking! (So, in other words, no.)

[NOTE: Ranking high in the "Bad Wok-Themed Puns" list I'm bound to work on some day? Southern California pan-Asian restaurant chain Wokcano.]

4

Glocktober

What better way to christen decorative gourd season than by firing off a powerful handgun? I legitimately can not think of a better way to do that. For real. Have you ever fired a powerful handgun at a decorative gourd? Me neither. But I bet that is freaking AWESOME.

Anyway, now I may finally get to find out, because the good people of GotGlock.org are holding a raffle, and lucky winners get one of these fabulous prizes:

I should add that this is one SERIOUSLY complicated online raffle. It's either called Glocktober or Glock-a-Day IN MAY! Both names are on the website.

I am not at all confused about how to get my Glock now! Also, it says that the event benefits "Drive Against Diabetes." Certainly a nice-sounding cause, although there's no link or explanation provided for what that actually is? (Maybe Ryan Gosling is raffling off his scorpion jacket as well? It's for charity!)

Prog-Tober

And why SHOULDN'T progressive rock get combined with the notion of a 31-day period between September and November. Answer THAT one?

An all-day progressive rock "festival" at O'Riley's in Dallas, Texas, was first to coin the phrase "Prog-Tober" to denote a bunch of YES-heads hanging out and listening to needlessly keyboard-heavy 20-minute jams. But the trend has continued ever since, to the dismay of anyone who wishes Alan Parsons had taken on fewer projects.

DJ Jay Julien has also named this hour-long set of progressive-inspired mashups "A Touch of Progtober." But we shouldn't let the fact that it's kind of cool dissuade us from eradicating neologisms like "Prog-Tober" from the lexicon overall. Just want to be on the same page about this.

7

Socktober

If you've ever wondered what Jim Henson's films might have been like if he was 7 years old and brutally insane... look no further than YouTube short "Socktober Nights," a horror film starring the titular footwear that's actually deeply chilling once you realize someone actually spent time making it and then uploading it to the Internet so that it could live on forever.

A less chilling (and, in fact, somewhat nuzzly soft) Socktober celebration also happens in the online knitting enthusiast community, when participants are encouraged to... um... knit socks in October. Yeah!

8

Crocktober

The art of crockpot cookery FINALLY gets its due in Crocktober! (Yes, crockpot cooking gets an entire month out of the year, and is the ONLY cooking utensil to warrant such an honor. Obviously! Wait, what's that you say? It's also Woktober? Don't correct me on my own list, okay? It's tacky.)

According to crockpot uber-celebrity Sarah Darling, Crocktober is going to leave you saying, "Wait a minute... You made that in a crockpot slow cooker?" I'm not sure what exactly you could make in a crockpot that would be that so shocking... A nice batch of frosted sugar cookies, perhaps? A baked alaska? I mean, who knows what they have in store? Crocktober is full of surprises.

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